On April 26,
1984, my roof was literally—and
figuratively—ripped from my house when
an F-3 tornado struck my suburban
Minnesota neighborhood. That night,
staying with a friend and unable to
sleep, I turned on the television and
happened upon a documentary about the
March from Selma to Montgomery. I
watched, riveted, as unfamiliar
history unfolded—events that took
place scarcely 100 miles from where I
grew up in Meridian, MS. Though my
house would be relatively easily
restored to its original condition, I
would be forever changed. Though it
would not happen for years, I would be
drawn home on a journey of discovery
that would give birth to a novel.

On March 7, 1965—a day now known as
“Bloody Sunday”—600 people headed east
out of Selma, Alabama on U.S. Route
80. Marching for the right to vote,
they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge
six blocks away before state and local
lawmen attacked them with billy clubs
and tear gas. They would try again
twice, reaching the capitol 25,000
strong on March 21. Less than five
months later, President Johnson would
sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The images I saw on the TV
screen—dangerous, brutal, and
arbitrary—somehow combined with images
of the tornado, to heighten my
reaction. Overarching the shock and
shame was confusion. Though my focus
remained on my career for years after
seeing the documentary, I never let go
of these questions: Why hadn’t I
known about it? And what might be
different if I had?

Bloody Sunday: March 7, 1965

I did my first interview in 2000.
Meridian civil rights attorney Bill
Ready Sr. painted a picture of the
time and place in which I grew up. One
TV station. One newspaper. Each owned
by the same man. Parents, white and
black, intent on protecting their
children from harsh realities.

As the
instigating questions led to many
more, I began to read—dozens of oral
histories captured as part of the
University of Southern Mississippi’s
Civil Rights
Documentation Project. And
I wrote—what I now refer to as “my
essay about the story I wanted to
write.”

In 2007, I began interviewing in
earnest, across the movements: civil
rights, anti-Vietnam War, and women’s
rights.

Ben Chaney,
voter rights activist whose brother
James was murdered along with Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman outside
Philadelphia, MS in the summer of
1964.

Heather Tobis Booth, an important
contributor to the early women’s
movement in Chicago and, like my
character Zach Bernstein, a Freedom
Summer volunteer from the University
of Chicago.

As Zach’s character became an integral
part of my story, I needed to educate
myself about Judaism—from the food, to
worship practices, to beliefs. I
recalled how, in 1968, Temple Beth
Israel in Meridian, MS was bombed and
rumors spread labeling the act as Klan
retaliation against civil rights
sympathizers. Knowing of the role of
reform Jews in the civil rights
movement, I connected with reform
rabbis and congregants in Chicago.

FBI reward poster for three missing
civil rights workers

Fannie Lou Hamer:
1964 Democratic
National Convention

I was informed by
people too numerous to mention but am
especially indebted to Chicago Sinai
Congregation, Harriet Hausman, Rabbi
Robert J. Marx, Chuck Mervis, and
Rabbi Paul Saiger. Chuck Mervis
graciously shared sermons written by
his late father, Rabbi Leonard Mervis,
around the time when Reverend Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Mrs.
Hausman and Rabbi Marx participated in
the March on D.C. and brought that
particular moment in history to life
for me. Rabbi Marx was also with Dr.
King in Selma.

In 2010 I shared
my developing manuscript with those
I’d interviewed and with new people
I’d begun to meet: educators, movement
figures, and book groups.

Vickie Malone, social studies
teacher who piloted civil rights
education at Mississippi’s McComb
High School. Ms. Malone’s
local cultures class
inspired Mississippi’s K-12 public
school mandated civil rights
education curriculum. Mississippi
is the first state in the U.S. to
issue such a mandate.

Mississippi Mandates K-12
Civil
Rights Education

2006 Unveiling: “The 5 in ’65” by
Robert McDowell

Faye Inge,
former language arts teacher and
Freedom School student who is one
of the “Meridian 5.” These five
African American women
desegregated Meridian High in
1965, well before Mississippi
finally complied with federally
mandated desegregation in January
1970.

Janie McKinney who, in 1961 as a
twelve-year-old white girl, gave
aid when one of the Freedom
Riders’ buses was attacked outside
her Anniston, AL home. Her story
in the PBS American
Experience documentary “Freedom
Riders”
caused my heart to ache for the
schism she must have felt—needing
to honor her faith and basic
humanity, fearing what might
happen to her father and family’s
livelihood, terrorized by her own
fear and the overwhelming
circumstances surrounding her.

The first book group to take up my
pre-published manuscript was Seattle’s The
BookClub.
Jackie Roberts, member and co-founder
of Seattle’s Interracial Dialogue
Series, was my gracious host. Since
then, book groups nationwide have read
and shared their reactions.

Freedom Riders’ Bus Firebombed in
Anniston, Alabama

Reader feedback suggested that,
though Freedom Summer is the
pivotal element in my story, it
was underdeveloped. Fleshing out
the summer of 1964 in Mississippi
required more research.

Montgomery
Institute Senior Fellow Dr. Bill
Scaggs, another reviewer,
introduced me to Gail Falk, who
taught at the Meridian Freedom
School 1964-65. Gail became both
mentor and muse, informing and
enlightening me about the
Mississippi Summer Project in
Meridian in 1964 and provoking me
to dig deeper to convey the
complex mix of emotions
experienced during that time.

My passion lies in tackling such
complexities, via themes of everyday
heroism, prejudice, and personal
change. And so, the novel’s primary
metaphor is a compound one. Not just
“fog”—confusing, mysterious,
obstructive. Not simply a
“machine”—rhythmic, controlled,
organized. But a “fog
machine”—poisonous, seductive,
pervasive, deadly, distorting,
relentless.

It’s of fundamental importance to me
to portray prejudice as a shared human
challenge, not a “Mississippi thing”
or “southern problem.” Differing
degrees of prejudice among my
characters, then, serve to compare and
contrast, never to excuse or mitigate.
I relate my title to the mission of the William Winter
Institute for Racial Reconciliationwhich describes
prejudice as “systemic and
institutionalized.”

Gail Falk (front), teaching:
Meridian Freedom School, 1964

Reflecting Pool:
1963 March on Washington

Each time I think about the people
I’ve been honored to interact with
during the writing of The
FOG MACHINE, I am awestruck. I’ve
tried to capture history from aging
history makers and present it through
relationships. One example is the
scene at the Reflecting Pool during
the March on D.C.

“Seventy-five years now I been living
in this country,” said the old Negro
in a voice that rang out like Mahalia
Jackson’s. “But today’s the one I
become a man.”
— From a true story, shared by Rabbi
Robert J. Marx

The writing of The
FOG MACHINE has been a journey
of discovery. Capturing history, lest we
forget or never even know it, and
exploring what enables and disables change
in human beings. I’ve found, as other
fiction writers have described, that
writing is an organic process. If you
create characters, then set them free,
they will lead you to answers to questions
you pose to them. Through the lives of C.J.
Evans, Joan Barnes, Zach Bernstein, and
all their friends, families, and people
they crossed paths with, I’ve concluded
this: a complex interaction of family,
culture, society, politics, personality,
religion, what we value, what we fear, and
who we meet determines both what prejudice
we feel and our ability to change.

I hope my
novel can entertain as well as inform and
that The
FOG MACHINE will find its
way into the hands of countless more book
groups, individual readers, students, and
teachers.